Motivation: the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

Motivation. This may sound strange coming from someone who makes a living pushing myself and others to their limit, but I would say the key to staying motivated is to Hold Yourself Back/Pace Yourself!

Bear in mind it’s ok to be de-motivated sometimes, you will not be motivated 100% of the time, but if you feel you need more motivation / productivity day to day, then I hope this helps.

When I start a workout, create a new goal, or work on something new, inside I am rarin’ to go, fired up and excited to get stuck in and give everything. I am full of excitement, and my enthusiasm knows no boundaries. Nor does my sense of self-limitation. I think I can do anything.

It’s not long before I learn again that I do have limitations, this is where a lot of people’s enthusiasm begins to wane, a prime example being falling off a diet routine or training plan or slipping back to bad habits, in any walk of life, after having been refreshed and motivated for a certain period of time, eg: New Year’s Resolutions! Pure Bullshit!

A great motivator that I have found is when you do have so much energy and passion at the beginning and feel like wanting to go all out — HOLD BACK. Don’t let yourself do everything you want to do, pace yourself!

Only let yourself do percentage of what you want to do, plan out a course of action where you slowly increase over time. For example, if go running, I might plan ‘5 miles today’, instead of letting myself do that, after mile 1, I change and say I will finish at 4. When I’m doing that first mile, I’ll be telling myself that I can do 5, but wont let myself. This way after that run/workout, I’ll be looking forward to the next workout, I’ll be fresher and that’s when I’ll let myself push harder; do 5 or 6 miles.

Keep that energy reined in, harness it, so that you can ride it even further the next time, this gives a sense of self control, and it’s the opposite to what most ‘motivational’ advice would say, for example “push yourself further” “do more than you think you can” “go beyond limits” etc. the thing you have to realize is there is a time and place to push that hard, it’s mostly highly experienced and skilled athletes who are able to judge when to push hard and push hard often.

Pacing yourself, holding back from time to time and training/working /living smarter not harder is the key to staying fresh, avoiding burnout and being MOTIVATED! This is because when the time comes to push hard & perform, you will have worked smart and be physically and mentally ready to do so.

Motivation isn’t purely a matter of discipline, it’s about staying focused on your goals and remembering why you started to do what you are doing in the first place.

8 More Tips on How To Stay Motivated:

– Create small realistic goals en route to the big ones, visualize them happening, make them public to hold yourself accountable.
– A good motivator is someone on the journey with you helping you stay on it.
– Chart progress.
– Reward yourself.
– Positive Mental Attitude.
– Be Patient.
– Make it Fun.
– Use Sources of Inspiration.